It would be easy to pin Ryan Kesler’s struggles on a 10.6% shooting rate, the lowest that he’s had since before he’d established himself as a 20-goal scorer. Or, it would also be too simplistic to say that Kesler’s shot distance, on average, is from a foot further back this season than it was last.

But it is easy because it simply not true—not the extra 5% of shooting percentage or the foot can properly explain why Ryan Kesler has seemed to have devolved from a 41-goal scorer into one on pace for 23 over 82 games.

Kesler has two goals in ten games, I’m sure it’s a statistic you’ll hear while we wait for the Canucks’ next game on Saturday against San Jose. But, remember, what “two goals in ten games” really means is “three goals in eleven games”. Why is this? Because when writing about a player struggles, it’s common to stretch the range only as far back as to make the streak you’re discussing look good or bad.

To escape this, when evaluating players or teams, I prefer to look at the season as a whole, and only use a certain amount of games if I’m looking to make a comparison between two players.

So I’m going to look at full seasons in the past, the last three, since that’s going far enough back in time to get a pretty good picture of the player Ryan Kesler has been. With that perspective, using a few statistics, we can show that Kesler isn’t too different of a player this year, it’s just that last season was an obvious anomaly:

SOG/60

Att/60

2009

6.9

12.0

2010

7.7

14.0

2011

8.8

16.8

2012

7.6

16.0

Kesler’s not too far off from 2010 Kesler, and still better than 2009 Kesler. Remember, those versions of Ryan Kesler scored 26 and 25 goals respectively, a fairly-high number for a player who is silly-good at defense. Per 60 minutes of play at even strength, I’ve estimated (using data found at Behind The Net.ca) that Ryan Kesler is getting 7.6 shots per 60 minutes on 16.0 attempts.

So he’s not shooting the puck any less than he was last season, and his numbers are still up from 2010. The difference lies within how many shots are being blocked or missed.

Here’s a breakdown on what happened with Kesler’s attempts:

Goals

Saves

Misses

Blocks

2009

6.5%

50.7%

25.1%

17.7%

2010

4.6%

50.4%

26.3%

18.7%

2011

7.2%

45.0%

21.9%

25.9%

2012

3.3%

44.0%

25.3%

27.3%

For some reason, be it luck or whatever, Kesler missed the net a lot less last season than he ever did. We can’t say that “well, Kesler is getting more shots blocked this season” because that was the case last season as well, and he scored 23 goals at even strength, up from 12 the previous season.

Now, Kesler’s even strength shooting percentage is obviously going to bring itself up, but the fact is that Kesler is a player who typically shoots in volumes from a distance and probably won’t be one to go over 10% at even strength for regular spats in his career like, say, Daniel Sedin can.

Here are Kesler’s recent even strength shooting percentage numbers:

Sh%

2009

11.4%

2010

8.3%

2011

13.8%

2012

7.0%

Remember, shooting percentage isn’t a statistic on how good of a shooter somebody is. Shot percentage numbers wildly differentiate year-to-year because there is a lot of luck that goes into shooting. Kesler appears to be in a “down-year” right now. Only 3.3% of his attempts have found their way in this year, and only 7.0% of the shots that have hit the net, which is a low in the last three-and-a-bit seasons.

Finally, just to show that Kesler isn’t exactly “struggling”, here’s a look at his full 5-on-5 Fancy Stat breakdown. Remember, Corsi is the total on-ice shot differential for the player’s team when he was on the ice, Ozone% is the rate of draws that a player starts in the offensive zone versus the defensive zone, and Corsi Rel QoC is a quality of competition metric that uses a variant on the Corsi statistic to judge the skill of opponents that a player is facing. PDO is the addition of on-ice save percentage and shooting percentage at 5-on-5:

Corsi/60

Ozone%

Corsi Rel QoC

PDO

2009

2.91

43.0%

1.265

100.5%

2010

11.77

45.1%

0.896

98.0%

2011

17.73

50.0%

0.228

101.2%

2012

16.79

48.6%

0.383

101.9%

Kesler’s Corsi number is slightly down from last season, but he’s starting a couple more shifts in the defensive zone and is playing against slightly tougher competition. Using these numbers, you can see that the Canucks are still extremely likely to have the puck when Kesler’s on the ice—the team gets the majority of the shot attempts.

Kesler’s still a player you can stick out for some tough minutes (and Vigneault used Kesler on the ice for the last shift in regulation time against the Los Angeles Kings, to guarantee his team at least a point). Whatever Kesler does, he’s succeeded at keeping the puck moving in the right direction at a very impressive rate for the last two years and a bit.

With the puck at the right end of the ice, we can only wait for the attempts off Kesler’s stick to stop finding posts and shin-guards, and eventually, the back of the net. Lost in the talk of his struggles is that Kesler is still doing a very good job at keeping the puck out of his own end. I expect that to keep up, and not his low-scoring rate.

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the “X” in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.